In his third State of the State address, Rick Scott will push for lower taxes and a raise for teachers -- but the governor also will address the debate over how many new jobs are being created in Florida, who is primarily responsible for getting them up and running, and why Florida is doing a better job than any other state in the nation to make itself attractive to newcomers and residents alike.
Here are pertinent sneak peeks the governor's office released from his Tuesday session-opening address:
We came into office saying we wanted to create an environment that would encourage businesses to add 700,000 jobs over seven years.
When I took office two years ago, the debate was about whether or not this goal was even possible.
Now, there is a debate about how to count all the jobs being created, and who should get credit for it. Maybe it is because I am not a politician, but I think this is a great debate to have. It celebrates the fact that our economy is once again creating jobs And, as Ronald Reagan said, there is no limit to what you can accomplish if you dont care about who gets the credit.
Two years ago, we began the hard work to get our states economy back on track. Today, we know its working.
We could have chosen a different course. We could have continued to drive up taxes and borrowed to increase spending. That would have been the easy way out.
California raised their top income tax rate to 13.3 percent -- the highest in the nation. But, it isnt working in California. People are leaving their state and they have the second highest unemployment rate in the country.
"More taxes and more spending arent working in New York either. More than 3.4 million New Yorkers fled for other states from 2000 to 2009. Florida was their No. 1 destination.
Scott has always been quick to call attention to the abysmal numbers in the four years before he took office. A little before and after:
Before: Floridas unemployment rate more than tripled and more than 800,000 jobs were lost.
After: Unemployment has dropped to a four-year-low of 8 percent and nearly 200,000 nongovernmental jobs have been created.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at (850) 727-0859.
